The San Francisco-based bank originated nearly $4 billion in NYC commercial real estate loans in the first nine months of the year – about $1 billion of it in Q3, when it financed properties including Vornado Realty Trust’s $500 million acquisition of the 840,000-square-foot office tower at 330 Madison Ave.

There are two caveats here, though.

The first is that Wells Fargo isn’t originating more in New York City now than it did in the first nine months of 2016 in terms of raw dollars. Rather, it has moved to the top because its competitors are originating less, not because it is originating more.

The second is that Wells Fargo has faced repeated scandals over its operations, and it’s not yet fully clear how this will play out. Last year the bank was fined $185 million over more than 2 million accounts the government found were opened without customer authorization. Wells Fargo has since fired thousands of employees, replaced its CEO, and its customer billing practices for mortgage fees and auto insurance are under investigation, opening the bank to the possibility of additional government penalties. In its Q3 quarterly supplement, Wells Fargo reported $1 billion in discrete litigation accrual.

Goldman Sachs, Bank of the Ozarks

When we compared 2016’s top 10 loan originators in NYC with the top 10 originators for 2017, based on data for the first nine months of the year, we found that, for the most part, the same names appeared on both lists.

There were some exceptions, however.

Private equity fund Blackstone and M&T Bank, based in Buffalo, New York, have slid off CrediFi’s ranking of top 10 loan originators for NYC commercial properties, for now at least. Instead, Goldman Sachs and Arkansas-based Bank of the Ozarks are among the top 10 NYC lenders of 2017, as of Q3.

Goldman Sachs originated nearly $2 billion in commercial mortgages for NYC properties, more than double the same period last year, and came in at No. 8 YTD in 2017.

Bank of the Ozarks originated over $1.5 billion and is at No. 9.

LoanCore Capital Credit REIT, Madison Realty Capital

LoanCore Capital Credit REIT’s commercial mortgage origination has risen nearly sevenfold over the course of 2017, from $60 million in Q1 to over $400 million in Q3. It was among the top 20 in the first nine months of 2017.

Another non-bank lender, real estate investment management firm Madison Realty Capital, was a newcomer to the NYC top 10 list in Q3, originating nearly $500 million in the period. Madison Realty has not been among the biggest NYC originators throughout the year (as of the first nine months), however, and it remains to be seen whether it will continue to appear on the top 10 in the next few quarters.

New York Community Bank

Are local banks coming back? New York Community Bank significantly increased its New York City multifamily origination in Q3 following a decline over the past two years.

NYCB’s Q3 multifamily origination in New York City rose 50% quarter-over-quarter, to $782 million, following a drastic decline since 2015, when multifamily origination reached $5.9 billion for the year before dropping by half, to $3 billion in 2016. Its overall CRE origination in New York City also headed upward in Q3.

The change comes after NYCB held back on growth in an effort to keep its assets below the $50 billion mark that would trigger its designation as a systemically important financial institution subject to increased regulatory and capital requirements.

Now, though, New York Community Bank has “the flexibility to grow the balance sheet by approximately $5.9 billion without breaching the $50 billion SIFI threshold,” its said in its Q3 earnings call. The bank projected continued loan growth.

Both NYCB and Signature Bank are among the city’s biggest lenders. Signature Bank’s CRE loan origination exceeded that of NYCB in New York City in the first nine months of the year – going past the $2.5 billion mark, compared with NYCB’s origination of slightly over $2 billion – even though it had a smaller increase in multifamily origination. Both New York banks saw a decline in CRE origination in the first nine months of 2017 compared with the same period the previous year, yet New York Community Bank is looking like it’s ready to reverse course.

The next few quarters will tell which lenders will jostle their way to the top of the pile in 2018 – be it national banks like Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs, regional banks such as New York Community Bank and Bank of the Ozarks, non-bank lenders like LoanCore Capital Credit REIT... or a surprise lender waiting in the wings for its chance to soar.

Ely Razin is CEO of CrediFi, a big data platform serving the commercial real estate finance market, and CredifX, the technology-driven platform connecting commercial real estate borrowers with financing. He can be reached at ceo@credifi.com.

Ely Razin is CEO of CrediFi, a financial technology startup providing data and analytics on commercial real estate finance. He can be reached at ceo@credifi.com.